Benjamin Franklin Butler

(1818-1893)
Massachusetts

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Famous Leaders and Battle Scenes
of the Civil War 214 (New York: Mrs. Frank Leslie, 1896)

"Attorney-General Benjamin F. Butler . . . on one day would pen an opinion for a department, and on the next a poem for the 'Democratic Review' . . . ." [Irving Browne as a Poet, 9 Green Bag 354 (1897)]

Thos. W. Herringshaw, The Biographical Review of Prominent Men
and Women of the Day (Chicago: Elliott and Beezley, 1889)

[Used with permission of the Florida Center for Instructional Technology]

Benjamin Butler was born on November 5 (or 6th), 1818 at Deerfield, New Hampshire. After his father's death, Butler's mother, in 1828, settled in Lowell, Massachusetts where she ran a boarding house. Benjamin attended Waterbury (now Colby) College in Maine where he graduated in 1838. He returned to Lowell, taught school and studied law. He was admitted to the bar in 1840 and began the practice of law, which he carried on throughout his life.

Butler was quite successful in the practice of law and was, after the Civil War, able to maintain homes at Lowell, Washington, D.C. and on the New England coast. Butler, a Democrat, was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1853, and to the Senate of that state in 1859.

Butler took up his war duties in 1861, landing at Annapolis to relieve the blockade of Washington, D.C., served in the occupation of Baltimore, nominated major-general of volunteers, took command at Fortress Monroe, and was leader of a military expedition that lead to the battle of Big Bethel with poor results. He later served as the commander of the occupying forces of New Orleans, and his administration of that effort was quite controversial.

In 1865 he returned to Lowell, Massachusetts and was elected to Congress in 1866 where he served until 1875. He ran for Governor of Massachusetts twice in the early 1870s and was defeated. Defeated for Congress, he finally won reelection in 1878 as an independent Greenbacker. In 1882 he was elected Governor of Massachusetts but was defeated for reelection to that position.

Butler's son, William Allen Butler, was also a lawyer and a poet.

Benjamin Franklin Butler
Wikipedia

Autobiography

Benjamin F. Butler, Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benj. F. Butler (Boston: A.M. Thayer, 1892) [on-line text]

Correspondence

Benjamin F. Butler, Private and Official Correspondence of Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, during the period of the Civil War ([Norwood, Massachusetts: Plimpton Press], Privately issue, 1917) [on-line text]

Selected Writings

Benjamin F. Butler, Plan for the organization of a law faculty and for a system of instruction in legal science in the University of the city of New York by Benjamin F Butler; New York University. School of Law (New York: University Press, 1835)

______________, Outline of the constitutional history of New York, an anniversary discourse, delivered at the request of the New York Historical Society, in the city of New York, November 19, 1847 (New York: Bartlett & Welford, 1848)

Bibliography

Robert Werlich, "Beast" Butler: The Incredible Career of Major General Benjamin Franklin Butler (Washington: Quaker Press [1962])